“Pl-please, spare me. Duke!”

Marquis Rodrigo couldn’t even feel the pain in his hand that seemed about to be severed. Akia’s gaze, looking down at him, was so piercing that it felt as if frost was creeping over him.

‘I thought he was just a kid…’

Akia looking at him seemed like an entirely different person. It was dizzying to see the forest spread beneath the Marquis’s feet.

If the Duke lifted his shoe that was pinning Marquis Rodrigo’s hand at this moment, he would fall helplessly.

Marquis Rodrigo felt that the time waiting for Akia’s answer was as eternal as eternity. The hand and foot observing the sprouting lips trembled.

“Yes. You want to live?”

“Yes, yes! I want to live. I’ll do anything, please just spare my life!”

Marquis Rodrigo accepted Akia’s words with desperation. He would do anything as long as he was rescued from this abyss.

At this moment, Marquis Rodrigo, who was desperate to survive, was willing to give up everything to the Duke.

“Anything you say. Then, can you bring me the Empress’s neck?”

Marquis Rodrigo’s lips hardened firmly.

‘How can one talk about killing the Empress of a country!’

It was an unreasonable demand. Marquis Rodrigo, who was afraid of the consequences of Illei’s revenge, swallowed his saliva.

“W-Well… I can tell you the weakness of the Empress Mama instead!”

If he handed over the Empress’s weakness, he could deal with the woman without dirtying his hands.

Whether Akia sensed such intentions or not, the red pupils staring at Marquis Rodrigo were more intense than ever.

“Weakness? Rather than that, I want to send the Empress for sure.”

“D-Duke. It must be a fatal weakness!”

Marquis Rodrigo’s voice trembled mercilessly.

“First, pull me up to the cliff a bit. Then, tell me slowly.”

If he could avoid this crisis, he would even offer the ledger containing numerous misdeeds committed by the Empress.

If it was Akia, he might want to expel the Empress and replace her, ascending to the throne instead of Illei.

Although Marquis Rodrigo planned to trade the weaknesses of the Empress and the Emperor, Akia twisted his lips.

“Why? When I told you to kill her, can’t you do it? My mother’s neck was cut so ruthlessly, you know.”

Marquis Rodrigo froze with his mouth wide open.

Akia, who had witnessed the scene of the young Duke dying at the hands of the assassins, said, “I saw it with my own eyes!”

At that time, Akia might have been only around ten years old. To think that the young Duke watched the Empress dying at the hands of the assassins!

Not only that, but he accurately pulled himself and the Empress, who had killed the Duke, out.

‘Then, until now, she hid in illness and pretended to be dead…!’

Marquis Rodrigo’s heart sank. More than the fact that he was hanging on this precarious cliff, he was more terrified of learning the truth from Akia.

Perhaps sensing his change of heart, Akia’s lips curled with a chilly sarcasm.

“Marquis. Honestly, I want to lift this foot right now.”

Akia lifted the foot that had been mocking, slightly.

In an instant, as the force supporting him just barely before gave way, Gerald’s body swayed in the air.

“I know that Empress ordered to kill my mother, but wasn’t it you who planned it?”

But just before falling, Akia’s foot pressed down on Marquis Rodrigo’s wrist again. Stronger than before.

“You have no negotiating power. So don’t even think about bargaining.”

“……”

“If you want to live, bring me solid evidence that you’ve cut the Empress’s neck.”

Akia, stepping on his palm ruthlessly without any mercy, was more cruel than ever.

Clatter.
The sound of ice mixing in a glass echoed in the dark room. Illei, who was tilting a glass while looking out the window, quietly muttered.

“The formula for the antidote?”

“Here it is.”

A man who revealed himself from the dark shadows handed a paper to the Emperor from his embrace.

Illei, glancing at the bloodstain on the paper, twisted his lips.

“I confirmed the apothecary’s life was taken, but Gerald fell from the cliff, pierced by the poisoned knife.”

“Fell from the cliff… So, does that mean we couldn’t confirm Marquis Rodrigo’s death?”

Illei’s voice, listening quietly to the man’s report, turned sharp.

“…I’m sorry. But the knife that stabbed him is tainted with poison. Falling from such a height in that condition, the probability of survival is almost non-existent…”

Bang!

As if telling him not to say anything more, Illei forcefully put down the glass he was holding on the desk.

Due to that, the whiskey contained in the broken glass splashed onto his hand.

“The almost non-existent probability means, conversely, there is a possibility he might be alive.”

“That’s…”

In response to the sharp question of the Emperor, the man stammered, lowering his gaze.

“Rix. I don’t know how the Empress was, but I don’t tolerate even small mistakes.”

Illei’s voice, like the Emperor calling himself, made Rix unconsciously swallow dry saliva.

‘Did the Emperor originally have such eyes?’